March 2015

Tuesday, December 02, 2014

Before I get started here, let me confess what might ought to be obvious.

The word hell (twice) in the post's title is admittedly gimmicky. It's my sophomoric way of capturing your attention. If you're still reading, it kinda sorta worked.

It is however also relevant to what I'm trying to write about here so stick with me. I'll attempt to make it worth your while and make the connection.

I've been thinking of late about forgiveness... a lot... and exactly what it means.

As a Catholic, I'm forgiven formally of my offenses against God in the Sacrament of Reconciliation (also known as Confession) when I repent and seek His forgiveness.

So what is repentance? It is sorrow for sin (contrition) coupled with a resolute desire to avoid committing that sin again (purpose of amendment). In other words, my forgiveness is predicated on my repentance. If I have no sorrow for sin and if I have no desire to avoid committing that sin again, I have no forgiveness otherwise I would in essence be given license to continue to sin again and again and again.

God does not desire that I be free to sin with impunity. Can we agree?

Let me let those with more credibility, more depth, more integrity, attempt to convince you of what I'm attempting to articulate:

Cheap grace means grace as a doctrine, a principle, a system. It means forgiveness of sins proclaimed as a general truth, the love of God taught as the Christian "conception" of God. An intellectual assent to that idea is held to be of itself sufficient to secure remission of sins. The church which holds the correct doctrine of grace has, it is supposed, ipso facto a part of that grace. In such a Church the world finds a cheap covering for its sins; no contrition is required, still less any real desire to be delivered from sin. Cheap grace therefore amounts to a denial of the living Word of God, in fact, a denial of the Incarnation of the Word of God. Cheap grace means the justification of sin without the justification of the sinner. Grace alone does everything, they say, and so everything can remain as it was before.

~Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Costly Grace

Or, put another way:

Confession without repentance involves self-deception and does us positive harm. The Sacrament of Penance does not operate like a charm, and absolution touches only those sins for which we are truly sorry.

~Fr. Alfred Wilson, Pardon and Peace.

That speaks hopefully with clarity and conviction, to the forgiveness we seek from God. God's forgiveness is not unilateral in that we must be contrite and we must be actively willing to avoid the occasion of committing that sin again.

Which brings us to the offering (and accepting) of forgiveness to (and from) each other.

The Lord's prayer teaches that we are to forgive those who trespass against us as He forgives us. We've established what is necessary to receive His forgiveness and how the Church teaches this through the mechanics involved in the Sacrament of Confession. We should then, as the Lord's prayer references, forgive those who trespass against us in like manner or we will encourage a continuation of those trespasses.

That's not to say we should be unwilling to forgive. An unwillingness to forgive will inevitably result in bitterness and an unloving disposition. We would in essence, by propagating that unwillingness, be falling into sin ourselves. We don't want to go there.

So what's the bottom line and where do we go from here?

The bottom line is that forgiveness is obviously serious and necessary. Without it, that word used twice in the post's title comes into play and we've already established (hopefully) that we don't want to go there. Hopefully. But forgiveness should not be taken lightly, should not be offered cheaply as it is not offered to us cheaply by God.

We should certainly be willing to forgive and this ad infinitum as to how often but I think it's clear that forgiveness is conditional and dependent on repentance. True reconciliation, with God first and foremost, and with each other, will only take place when true repentance is offered.

I'll close with this reminder from an Anglican priest (of course, we'll forgive his Anglicanism) that I think best summarizes the mindset we who seek true forgiveness, through true repentance, should adopt:

The Scriptural doctrine in regard to repentance is not, that a man must repent in order to his being qualified to go to Christ; it is rather, that he must go to Christ in order to his being able to repent. From Him comes the grace of contrition as well as the cleansing of expiation.

Let's be serious about seeking forgiveness by being serious about repenting, and let's be serious about repenting by seriously seeking His grace for both contrition and for purpose of amendment. This is not something we can undertake on our own. We need His help. And he offers that help lovingly, mercifully, willingly. Seek it. Seek Him. Even now.

Isaiah distinguishes five ailments which beset us, and from which we need rescue. We are drifting, demanding, depraved, disaffected, and depressed. But in the end, Isaiah reminds us of our dignity. Let’s look at each in turn.

1. Drifting – The text says, Why [O Lord] do you let us wander from your ways, and harden our hearts so that we fear you not? Return for the sake of your servants, the tribes of your heritage.

It is a common human tendency to wander or drift. It is a rarer thing for people to reject God all of a sudden, especially if they were raised with some faith. Rather, what usually happens is that we just drift away, wander off course. It is like the captain or pilot of a boat who stops paying close attention. Soon enough the boat is farther and farther off course. At first things are not noticed, but the cumulative effect is that the boat is now headed in the wrong direction. He did not suddenly turn the helm and shift 180 degrees, he just stopped paying attention and drifted … and then drifted some more.

And so it is with some of us who may wonder how we got so far off course. I talk with many people who have left the Church and so many of them cannot point to an incident or moment when they walked out of Church and said, “I’ll never come back here.” It is usually just that they drifted away, fell away from the practice of the faith. They missed a Sunday here or there and, little by little, missing Mass became the norm. Maybe they moved to a new city and never got around to finding a parish. They just got disconnected and drifted.

The funny thing about drifting is that the farther off course you get, the harder it is to get back. It just seems increasingly monumental to make the changes necessary to get back on track. Thus Isaiah speaks of the heart of a drifter becoming hardened. Our bad habits become “hard” to break, and as God seems more and more distant to us, we lose our holy fear and reverence for Him.

It is interesting how, in taking up our voice, Isaiah, “blames” God for it all. Somehow it is “His fault” for letting us wander, because He let us do it.

It is true that God has made us free and that He is very serious about respecting our freedom. How else could we love God, if we were not free? Compelled love is not love at all.

But what Isaiah is really getting at is that some of us are so far afield, so lost, that only God can find us and save us. And so we must depend on God being like a shepherd who seeks his lost sheep.

Thus, here is the first way that Isaiah sets forth our need for a Savior. And so, in Advent, reflecting this way, the Church cries out, “Come, Emmanuel! Come, Lord Jesus! Seek and find us for many of us are drifting.”

...

5. Depressed - The text says, All our good deeds are like polluted rags; we have all withered like leaves, and our guilt carries us away like the wind.

One of the definitions of depression is anger turned inward. And while Isaiah has given voice to our tendency to direct anger and blame at God, here he gives voice to our other tendency: to turn on ourselves.

Thus, our good deeds are described as being like polluted rags. It may be true that they are less than they could be, but calling them polluted rags also expresses our own frustration with our seemingly hopeless situation: our addiction to sin and injustice.

Ultimately, the devil wants us to diminish what little good we can find in ourselves and to lock us into a depressed and angry state. If there is no good in us at all, then why bother?

There is such a thing as unhealthy guilt (cf 2 Cor 7:10-11) and a self-loathing that is not of God, but from the devil, our accuser. It may well be this that Isaiah articulates here. And from such depressed self-loathing (masquerading as piety) we need a savior. Come, Lord Jesus!

The Monsignor has more and it's all good stuff particularly for those who are unhappy or down in the dumps.

Read it, digest it and be helped. We are all in need of a Savior and especially in need of knowing of that need. You may be suffering in a way that is indicating that need. Seek help.

Thursday, November 13, 2014

There are times when — all too innocently, because we have not been mindful of what is before us — we give too much license to a dead past that cannot be changed, and then we lose our handle on things.

Like the Sorcerer’s Apprentice, we conjure from the ether of our past a solitary-but-sharply-outlined idea, and then suddenly, one after another, memories begin to fall upon us, like bright orbs called from galaxies far beyond, and much better kept in the distance. Our disappointing families and imperfect parents, our closely held secrets and sins and sorrows and regrets, given too much free reign, begin to dominate us. They wreak havoc on our emotions and then begin to drain our spirits until we are depleted and depressed — all trust, all hope diminished.

When we get to that place, we begin to hate everyone — or to imagine that we do — and to wonder about that Being people call “God”; we think if that Being exists, it’s probably worth hating too, for creating so much that is warped and destructive; for allowing death and devastation such as we are seeing in the wake of Haiyan; for permitting innocence to be stolen, and hearts to be broken, and evil to flourish all-too-widely.

When we reach the point where God seems worth hating, we have also unavoidably entered into self-hatred. We can’t help it; we are fallen and the same instincts to idolatry that cause us to make godlings of the things and circumstances and people we love are also at work when everything becomes about our hatred and our hurts and where our darker feelings may safely be projected.

How do we protect ourselves from falling into this accidental deterioration of our spiritual and emotional health?

Read on and find out. Ms. Scalia has a way of reaching deep down inside her readers and pulling out that which leaves us wanting more. It's a gift.

Wednesday, November 05, 2014

The culture would rather this issue be left alone. The culture says simply that this is a personal matter and there's but one mind on it. The culture sees a contrary opinion on this as judgment and high-mindedness.

The culture, let's face it, is the death culture and the death culture is single-minded.

I can see the appeal of “death with dignity” and programs like those offered in Oregon and the Netherlands, where doctors will help you leave this world at the moment of your choosing, without fuss or bother or pain. I do not want to die and I really, really do not want to die the way my father did. I would find the indignities as excruciating as he did, and I have no confidence I would deal with the pain as bravely as he. I would not want my children to see me so pathetic.

“Death with dignity” seems to offer not only an escape from pain and humiliation but a rational and apparently noble way to leave this life. You look death in the eye and show him that you, not he, are in control. All “dying with dignity” requires is that you declare yourself God. Make yourself the lord of life and death, and you can do what you want. All you have to do, as a last, definitive act, is to do what you’ve been doing all your life: Declare yourself, on the matter at hand, the final authority, the last judge, the one vote that counts.

But you are not God, and, the Christian believes, the decision of when to leave this life is not one He has delegated to you. It is not your call. The Father expects you to suffer if you are given suffering and to put up with indignities if you are given indignities. The Lord gives, and the Lord takes away; blessed be the name of the Lord. And that, as far as dying goes, is that.

This is not, from a worldly point of view, a comforting or comfortable teaching. It is one much easier for Christians to observe in theory than in practice, and to apply to other people than to themselves. In practice, we will want to die “with dignity.”

My father was an engineer. I’m not sure if he read a theological book in his life. The questions that interested me bemused him. But he knew who he was and what he was called to do, a condition others would put in a theological language I suspect he thought was unnecessary. He was dying. That was his job, and he would do it as well as he could.

Lying in a hospice bed, in the very last situation he would have chosen for himself, my father taught me that to die with dignity means to accept what God has given you and deal with it till the end. It means to play the hand God has dealt you, no matter how bad a hand it is, without folding. It means actually to live as if the Lord gives, and the Lord takes away, and in either case blessed be the name of the Lord.

It’s dignity of a different sort than the corruptingly euphemistic slogan “death with dignity” suggests.

You need to read the entire piece. Though for David it's so deeply personal I think it to be deeply relevant to what's happening today.

I'm aware that because this issue is so personal, the temptation on it is, as I know many are doing, to simply shrug and adopt the mantra of live and let die. But there's much at stake here. So much. And for faithful Catholics, there are core principles involved.

What follows is educational though I hesitate initially in posting it because I think too many are put off by the overtly religious... but... it brings some much needed clarity to this in my view... so... why not sit through the following 3 minutes and minimally better understand why there's opposition to this issue from faithful Catholics.

Tuesday, November 04, 2014

“It is so difficult to listen to the voice of Jesus, the voice of God, when you believe that that the whole world revolves around you: there is no horizon, because you become your own horizon,” the Pope told mass-goers in the Vatican’s Saint Martha residence on Nov. 4.

...

“In the end (they) prefer their own interests rather than sharing dinner together: They do not know what it means to celebrate,” the Bishop of Rome said, noting that if the dinner had been a small gathering for business, everyone would have come.

“But what shocked them was the gratuity. Being one among the others, there…this form of egoism of being at the center of everything.”

Pope Francis explained that this form of egoism is often rooted in a fear of God’s gratuity, saying that when Jesus offers something so great that “even the saint is suspicious,” like he did to the disciples of Emmaus or to Thomas who wanted to touch his wounds, we think it’s better not to get involved.

“We feel safer in our sins, in our limitations, but feel at home; leaving our home to answer God's invitation, go to God’s house, with others? No. I'm afraid,” Pope Francis said, observing how this is a fear that all Christians have hidden deep inside.

The message seems clear.

If you want to feel good about yourself, if you want to be validated at all times, if you want to feel secure and comfortable and sentimentally warm and fuzzy in the faith, then Christianity, and dare I say Catholicism, is not for you.

But if you want to be challenged, if you want to be stretched, if you're ok with occasionally having your toes stepped on or in fact, occasionally be the toe stepper yourself, then Christianity, and particularly Catholicism, is something you should be embracing because in the end, you'll be better prepared to take on what life hands you.

The Pope steps on many toes and I'm of the firm belief the Holy Spirit is guiding his steps and for good reason.

Tuesday, October 21, 2014

"I chose it with no intention to provoke or scandalize. Reading the text, without being influenced by previous interpretations, you discover that it is a song about the power of love to renew people, to rescue them from their past," she explained. "And this is the way that I wanted to interpret it. For this reason, we have transformed this song from the pop-dance piece which it was, into a romantic ballad, a bit like the ones by Amos Lee. Something more similar to a lay prayer, than to a pop piece."

Monday, October 20, 2014

We are wounded by God because in being touched by Him we have been opened to a whole new way of living and seeing the world. Opened in this way we respond by going out of ourselves, offering ourselves up. As St. John of the Cross puts it “…after wounding me;/ I went out calling you, but you were gone.” These wounds then are wounds of love, of openness to the Other.

Such openness takes the form of a wound because we are not yet able to fully embrace God while we remain in sin and imperfect. There is no other way: We must be open to God before we can be filled by God.

As we come closer to Him, however, our wounds only worsen, as it were, as the dross of sin is melted away from our souls.

Not exactly what we hear from the televangelists, from the name it and claim it crowd, the prosperity gospel-arians, the well coiffed get rich quick theologians, all who flood the airwaves with their heretical bottom-of-the-birdcage-make-Jesus-your-Savior-and-be-happy claptrap.

If I've learned anything about faith, orthodox, traditional, historic faith (and not the sort of shallow, Hallmark sentimentalism too many are selling and too many more, so very sadly, are buying), is that faith can in fact be most painful.

Faith that lasts, faith that overcomes, faith that sustains, perseveres and eventually brings the greatest of comfort is faith that comes paradoxically from wrestling with God and from the pain God allows to happen in our lives. It's the faith taught by the Saints and especially by their lives. It's the faith passed down over the ages. The faith taught by the Church. It's the faith we all seek though many of us unknowingly, even blindly.

A source of joy is found in the overcoming of the sense of the uselessness of suffering, a feeling that is sometimes very strongly rooted in human suffering. This feeling not only consumes the person interiorly but seems to make him a burden to others. The person feels condemned to receive help and assistance from others and at the same time seems useless to himself. The discovery of the salvific meaning of suffering in union with Christ transforms this depressing feeling. Faith in sharing in the suffering of Christ brings with it the interior certainty that the suffering person "completes what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions"; the certainty that in the spiritual dimension of the work of redemption he is serving, like Christ, the salvation of his brothers and sisters. Therefore he is carrying out an irreplaceable service. (SD 27)

I've not yet suffered like a Saint. I hope in fact to never have to but I'm conforted by the fact that should Saintly suffering come, I'm enmeshed in the faith they used to overcome it.

God help all who suffer see You in that suffering and might they be sustained by that seeing.